This story is the details of the PIBS story. This is an interesting issue from the perspective of capital heirarchies and the voting against class interests (bondholder classes). However, the human story is quite real.

So, you want to burn all the bank bondholders? Read Albert the pensioner's story...By Ciaran ByrneSaturday June 18 2011Meet Albert Kempster: he's 73, has a pension of just £56 a week and usually shops at night to buy the food supermarkets are about to throw out.

Financially, life isn't too easy. With the rising cost of food and utility bills, he enjoys no luxuries and rents a one-bed flat in the bleak high-rise suburb of Sighthill, Glasgow.

Albert is pretty much struggling to stay afloat. Now Bank of Ireland is about to sink him.

Thanks to an extraordinary move by the bank, adrift after years of disastrous lending and property speculation, Albert's lifetime savings of £24,000 (€27,294) invested in high- interest bonds are about to be snatched from him.

This is not an issue I am acting as a politician in, but instead as a bondholder. These bonds were launched in 1991 when this was a normal retail bond.

There are lots of interesting legal and financial issues behind this, but it is worth understanding some of the real human stories. Albert's story is far from unique.

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